Thursday 19 May 2005

Pic of the day: "If you don't aim for perfection when you do something, then what will you do?" asks this teacher from the anime W - Wish. What will I do indeed? Zone out, probably.

In the zone

"Zone" is one of those trendy words that can fit both here and there. For instance, most of my favorite computer games have zones. Whether I am a superhero in the massive online game City of Heroes or I am gently guiding my Sims through life in Sims 2 University, zoning is to be expected. Whenever my character needs to move from one zone to another, there is a period of transition in which the game grinds to a halt, some fancy picture is displayed, and I can run off for a glass of chocolate milk. This is called zoning, but as long as I stay "in the zone", there is no such event. Obviously I prefer to stay in the zone when I can. (Unless I get really thirsty...)

Now this pulse watch I bought earlier in the month, it also uses zones. These are of course pulse zones, and calculated from my age. (I still refuse its offer to try to guess my max pulse, preferring the unreliable but not outright crazy standard formula, 220-age.) I have one zone for light exercise, which is my standard, and one zone for moderate. There is one hard too, but I have no wish to ever see it. When I am out exercising, which I have done quite a bit since I got it, my watch beeps whenever I go outside the zone. So much for "my own speed", huh? But at least my body does not grind to a halt and change color when I leave the zone...

As expected, after I've been out burning a few hundred calories, my body kinda enters a different zone. My rest pulse remains higher (typically around 70 instead of 55) for up to several hours, while the body works its alchemy to adapt to the new circumstances. Despite some reading on the topic, I am still not sure about everything it does. Opening up new capillaries, adding small amount of bone and muscle mass, increasing the number of mitochondria, moving around carbohydrates and fat, that kind of thing. Sadly, one of the things the body cannot do is transform fat into carbohydrates. It can make "ketone bodies", but that's pretty much reserved for emergencies. I doubt this happens to me on a regular basis.

Although it seems now, after a week of this new fad, that my body has entered a new zone on a longer-term basis as well. I am almost constantly hungry now, although not painfully so, but it is part of the "background noise" now. Even when my stomach hurts (which it seems to do as least as much as before), I am still hungry. Another change is that I am more tired, both in my legs (of course) and sleepy. I often become very sleepy already around midnight, instead of 2-3AM as usual. And I don't wake up much earlier, either. So yes, it really seems like a different zone.

And then, when I'm out on the road in my new and better shoes, moving along briskly to the rhythm of Japanese pop, I have this weird glimpse. Of a different life I could have lived and still been me. A life in which I am not as alone, not as different. Something like a memory from a life I did not live, an alternate reality ... a different zone. Twilight zone anyone? And I guess I really could have lived another life, if things had been different. But then I would not be able to zone out after two weeks, when the fad ends, and move on to something else. Which I am almost certainly going to do now. Because, in real life, this is who I am. Moving from zone to zone, and having a glass of chocolate milk inbetween.